Artisanal Sp.co Regulatory News (ART)

5 Sep 2006 07:30

Artisan (UK) PLC05 September 2006 Artisan (UK) plc Chairman's Statement at the Annual General Meeting At today's Annual General Meeting, Michael Stevens, Chairman will make thefollowing statement: "Since our March year end each business has made progress. Our commercialdevelopments company, Artisan (UK) Developments, is enjoying a good level ofinterest in its developments, though this interest still takes time to convertinto a contracted sale. Rippon Homes, the group's East Midlands based house building company, is findingthat each sale must be hard won. However, apart from a hiatus experienced duringthe football world cup, reservations are at reasonable levels, although thesereservations can prove fragile where the vendor has a property to sell. RipponHomes' careful use of sales assistance and part exchange schemes helps tomitigate this issue. Whilst we expect trading to be weighted towards the latter part of the currentperiod, your Board is confident of making good progress for the year as a whole. Investment in further sites remains key to the Group's growth and much effort isdirected towards this by both divisions. We have continued to purchase landsuccessfully and we are tendering for more land. The purchase process remainsdifficult and whilst we are very competitive in our bidding, there remaincompetitors willing to spend aggressively to secure a site, especially in thecommercial development sector. Finalising planning issues also builds delayinto the development process: the government's attempt to speed matters has notalways resulted in an improvement in gaining a planning permission. On thesales side, we are encouraged by customer interest at two of our new sites, inparticular the residential site near Lincoln and our new business park site inPeterborough. In common with all fully listed and AIM listed companies, Artisan must movetowards adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) basis ofaccounting. As part of the adoption of IFRS, the Company will move from an "exchange basis"to a "completion basis" of revenue recognition, which will bring Artisan intoline with the majority of quoted property developers. We have considered theimpact of this in relation to our key selling periods and decided that a 30 Juneyear end will be more appropriate than the current 31 March year end, which willagain bring the Company in line with many others in the sector who tend to haveJune or December reporting periods. We expect to deliver a post close trading statement in October and we shallprovide further advice as to the changes arising from the adoption of IFRSaccounting, including the change in revenue recognition and year end. Howeverat this stage other than the changes arising from the change in RevenueRecognition and the need to longer amortise goodwill, we do not expectsignificant changes to profitability and net assets to arise." Artisan (UK) plc 01480 436666 Chris Musselle, Chief Executive Brewin Dolphin Ifor Williams 0121 236 7000 Bankside Consultants 020 7367 8888 Simon Rothschild/Louise Mason Mobile: 07703 167065 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange